My journey as an OCA student of Photography

Assignment three: A narrative photograph

03March 2018March 3, 2018March 3, 2018March 3, 2018

Photography is often used as a tool to document the specificity of visual appearances. We’re all familiar with this use in passport photography, anthropological photography and crime photography. There’s no pretence at aesthetic quality: the photographer points the camera at the subject and tries to take a neutral ‘visual document’ which stands as visual evidence for what it represents. This mode of making pictures can be useful to all photographers as a means to research their subject. Whether this results in ‘finished’ pictures or not doesn’t really matter; it’s a means to gain visual knowledge. Take a look at Richard Billingham’s Ray’s a Laugh – a collection of family portraits originally taken as visual research for a painting project. It’s important to make a distinction here between what we can know through experience and verbal language and what is specifically visual. Thoughts aren’t visual and neither are emotions, although you can photograph the physical manifestations of these. Just look at Billingham’s telling pictures of his dad to see this at work. Political ideologies aren’t visual either but you can photograph people and events that illustrate them.

Brief: For this assignment, you have two choices:

To make a staged photograph OR To make a narrative sequence.

The key to narrative photography is observation. Watch people, the way they interact, the way things happen, events unfold, and you’ll see that there are telling moments like a ‘stand-off’ between a wilful child and its parents, or an awkward defiance when a ticket conductor on a train finds someone without a ticket. These may not seem like Hollywood situations, but the point is to find situations that are near to you. It may just be a frozen pause during a meal with friends or the cyclist sitting by the road after coming off his bike. What you’re trying to recreate is a telling expressiveness, that quality that shows you’ve noticed how people behave and how their character is revealed in their actions, postures, facial expressions.

1. A staged photograph A staged photograph is like a snapshot from a movie. It’s a ‘scene’, an event which you have constructed and captured at the perfect moment as a still photograph. It can be a simple ‘moment’ like a glance between two strangers on the street (Jeff Wall’s Mimic, 1982) or an elaborate recreation of a dramatic event (Jeff Wall’s A Sudden Gust of Wind, (after Hokusai), 1993). It can start with a simple event, like the postman peeping through the letterbox, an old lady jumping over a fence or someone tripping over a paving stone. But you should explore it conceptually and make it weightier in meaning by embellishing it; monumentalizing the event even though it’s small. In this way, you could turn the postman picture into an allegory about privacy or the old lady picture an allegory that challenges perceptions about old age.

A narrative sequence can be like a storyboard or comic strip that tells a story in a series of images. The story may be mysterious or humorous like Duane Michals Things are Queer (1973). It can be a fleeting moment or a monumental event. But there’s always the sense of time passing and an event unfolding. Research the sequences of Duane Michals online. http://www.carnegiemuseums.org/cmp/cmag/feature.php?id=463

Use your own life and work experiences as a source of ideas. Or use your dreams. Here are some key elements to think about:

Event – Your aim here is to express a situation or event. Perhaps it’s something you’ve noticed, like someone sneezing in the high street or two people arguing. You don’t need to encapsulate war and peace.

People – It will almost certainly involve people that will need to be rehearsed and directed like actors. But they can be themselves, they don’t need to pretend to be other people and they don’t need to be actors. Try to just let them be themselves and see what kinds of images you get. If that doesn’t work, ask them to think about a memory which reflects the one you’re trying to portray.

Setting – Every event has a setting, it happens somewhere. So think about places that would be accessible and telling. If you can, use environments you have access to, like your workplace, your home or back garden.

Props – Objects you use are important for setting the scene and expressing meaningful and telling narrative points about the situation.

Send your work to your tutor. Negotiate a time for a telephone or video tutorial (around 30 minutes) with your tutor. This kind of tutorial is your chance to speak about your work. You can respond to your tutor’s feedback about the assignment and clarify other issues your tutor has brought up previously. You can explain to your tutor:

the narrative you wanted to communicate

the way you tried to achieve this with people, props etc

any difficulties you had with the assignment

things you have realised about photography and changes you have witnessed in your own understanding over the duration of the course so far. If you’d prefer a written report, just let your tutor know.

Initial Thoughts:

In my first assignment, I had captured some images of the widespread slums that are scattered all around where I live and practically all across big towns in India. The juxtaposition of these alongside the high rise urban towers, that houses so many middle-high class society people have become an almost accepted part of the urban landscape in our country. I had taken some long shots and I was encouraged to go inside of these slums and try and capture the activities up close.

A reality so extreme that most of us cannot even imagine a life like that. The constant influx of immigrants from neighbouring states as well as neighbouring countries like Bangladesh and Nepal, give rise to these slums. Working as daily wage labourers in a city that never ceases to grow, maids and drivers to the nouveau riche or the corporate power families that these growing towns attract, these slum dwellers live below the poverty line and the things that we take for granted as necessities of basic living are luxuries or just fantasies for these people. For my final assignment, taking the learnings from the coursework so far, I had planned to visit one such slum for capturing some real-life scenes as well as get an opportunity to capture my “narrative photograph.”

Change of ideas: Due to the wide gap that I had due to some personal family commitments, I had to restart this assignment and this long gap did result in some rethinking on my part. Although I did plan an entire morning visiting the slum area and shooting there, I changed my mind mid-way to attempt doing a staged photograph.

I was quite averse to the idea of a staged or constructed photography until now. I always felt more at ease capturing natural moments and would run away from the very mention of staging something. I never thought I will be admitting to this let alone be doing it, but all this research of the various photographers made me change my mind. I was not only intrigued by looking at these iconic staged images but also couldn’t help but make a few of my own. Despite having visited the slum area and getting some great narrative images, I decided to redo this assignment as a staged photograph after I had this sudden idea in my head.

Planning: The men in my family have been great fans of the mafia and love watching movies like Godfather, Scarface, wise Guys, etc. All their young years have been spent in watching and rewatching these movies over and over again. Also their dialogues and accents have been influenced by the Italian mafiosi. They revered these actors all through their younger years and it often brings a smile to my face listening to them deliver a dialogue in their thick Italian accent. Now much older and wiser, I thought that it would not only turn out to be a great assignment idea but also would be a great tribute to capture these lifetime memories of the two brothers. Hence began the preparation for my staged photograph.

Costume & Props: We decided to narrow down to some leather jackets, long overcoats, scarves, hats, heavy duty gangster watches, a bottle of Sambuca (an Italian liquor) and a couple of glasses, cigars and the mysterious briefcase. The highlight of this shoot was the Glock pistol though. I was really lucky to have gotten to use that as a prop.

My inspiration board:

I looked at stills and images from various mafia movie posters, though I have seen these movies so many times that they are entrenched in my brain. Here are some visuals that I collected on the net for the kind of ideas I had in mind.

Location: The locations I had in mind consisted of both outdoors and indoors, but I restricted myself to do this entirely indoors at different locations within the house as I had limited time with my models. Doing this at home gave me more control over the lighting as well as the freedom to create my sets without interference or unwanted attention.

Lighting: I have used a single source of light in this and the kind of light modifier used is a barn door. I wanted to create a very dark and dingy, den kind of looking atmosphere with a strong single source of light, highlighting the subjects. Because I wanted to focus strongly on one of my subjects and the other to blend into the background, in most of my images, this light worked best for the vision that I had in my mind. It gave strong harsh highlights to my primary subject and enough spill light to make the second person in the background visible enough but not taking the attention away from the main focus.

These are my top 5:

A wise guy is always right, even when he’s wrong he’s always right!God forgives but Italians don’tFamily firstThe BriefcaseIn our business, you get paid by fear

I had great fun while shooting for this assignment. I shot for about an hour and a half. The contact sheets of my entire work can be seen here –

Conclusion: I allowed my models to try and be themselves most of the times – their awareness about the mafiosi expressions, behaviour, postures was clearly greater than mine and I really didn’t have to direct them much. Even though there is so much more that I have in mind in terms of location, settings, scenes, etc. I am happy with what I achieved in a limited time. To get out of the mindset of being against staged photography or anything related to people and planned images, is the biggest milestone achieved for me. It has opened up avenues that I never thought would be an option that I will be exploring happily and I think I was able to achieve what the brief was for a staged photograph.

15 thoughts on “Assignment three: A narrative photograph”

From looking through your contacts as well as your final five, it’s clear that you had a lot of fun and have great models to work with. They have so much character and you have captured it well.

Your light source is right for these photos, and the darkness around the edges adds a sinister feel.

As a purist and more traditional photographer it’s great to see you moving away from what you are comfortable with and trying something new, and succeeding very well with it too.

This is just my opinion here Archna, but I’m not enthused by The Brief Case. The facial expressions feel artificial, rather than the more natural expressions in the others.

From your contacts I particularly liked 8837, good dynamics that highlights who the boss is, 8855 has a roughness to it, a moment of thought captured, and 9002 had a similar feel, but is strengthened by the henchmen stance in the background. The element of threat comes across. Black and white would be stronger still.

Hey Richard. Thank you for your detailed feedback as always. I do agree with you on the briefcase photo – I also felt it was a bit artificial. So thank you for confirming it. I should go with my gut next time. I did have fun working on this assignment. Yes, I do agree that black & white works better. I will definitely improve upon this. Be my guest as far as the inspiration board goes. It’s being pinched from generations of designers 🙂 so it’s not my property 🙂

Good post Archna, I particularly liked the lighting in these pictures, did you use speedlights? The Briefcase was my favourite from the sequence, both of the models seem to be focused on whatever is in the case. Some great expressions from the models.

Archna the only criticism that I have is the pointing of the weapon at you as the photographer.From my training re guns – you never point a gun at an individual even if it is unloaded. If it was a theater prop then again it should still be pointed slightly away. Sorry I know I am being picky, but from a safety issue it has been well ingrained into me. Otherwise a nice set of photo’s – pity there is no dialogue from the actors to hear what they are saying.
Well done

Hi Dave. It is a real gun – unloaded though. I understand what you are saying as am into theatre as well. But Godfather won’t point the gun slightly away but directly at you. haha!! In fact, my models were pointing it away but I purposely asked them to point it directly at me. If I am replicating a scene from a movie where someone is pointing a gun at me then it better look real 🙂 In a movie scene, the gun is always directly pointed at the subject IF it is meant to be directly pointed at them. It is NOT slightly away. I wasn’t replicating theatre. The whole point of this was to make it look real – and that’s what I have done 🙂 – also there is not supposed to be any dialogues from the actors to hear – I perhaps don’t understand what you mean – as this was neither a film nor a project where you have to write a long narrative – the whole point of this assignment was to create a narrative photograph that captures a moment or freeze a moment, which makes the viewer wonder about the image and raises questions like maybe the one you asked. If I am not able to understand the intention behind what you implied, please elaborate, my apologies for not clearly understanding what you are saying about no dialogues!!! Thank you for taking the time out and providing a feedback. Much appreciated. 🙂

I love this work Archna. I enjoy all your photos and what makes them impressive for me is the range of work you are developing. I found this assignment particularly enjoyable because my father-in-law is Sicilian having moved to the UK when he was a small boy. And we love the mafia movies too!

There were a couple of things went through my mind in the spirit of constructive critique:

1. For me the best photo is “A wise guy is always right..”. There’s a natural interaction between the actors and a candid nature to the photo that makes it very believable (from a gangster perspective). It comes across as completely unstaged.

2. The Glock is a little bit overused a think – I know it must have been tempting to use it! I didn’t have any issue with the gun pointed at the viewer … I share your view in the response to Dave above. But it is present and visible in all the photos and may have had even more impact if used in only one or two, or else partially hidden so you get the sense of drama and threat.

3. From a technical perspective the photos are beautifully shot. Superb lighting (I had to look up what a barn door was!), composition and pin sharp.

Thank you, Andy –
1. I agree that is for me is the best image too!
2. Yes lol!! I think its an editing issue with me – if you look at the assignment’s contact sheets you will see a whole lot of images otherwise. But I stand guilty – as I and my older model just couldn’t get over the Glock! haha!! Also, I should have just chosen that one image perhaps as my final assignment image but I was greedy and hence the five and that’s why your comment. I also realize that I always somehow make a wrong choice with my final editing of images – I always get confused and that’s something I need to overcome seriously. It happens almost every time. So thank you for pointing that out. This is one aspect that I still have problems with. I think I need to look at my assignment as an outsider with absolute ruthlessness. I have become better but still a long way to go. Any tips to overcome this annoying habit is welcome.

Thank you for taking the time out Andy. I myself wanted to become a gangster all my growing years. I was so bummed that I couldn’t even play with the Glock before I had to return it but I did have a go at it in the privacy of my room trying all gangster poses I front of the mirror before I had to return it (sadly) 🙂

Don’t be too hard on yourself Archna … they’re great shots! I agree sometimes “less is more” with a series, but I too would have chosen all five of the ones you did. They’re fun and beautifully shot, they look extremely professional.

I am late on the scene (!) but that means I can view this gangster narrative and have the benefit of the critical reviews! This assignment was a surprise for me Archna, and none the less enjoyable for that. Your photography is superb whatever subject you choose and this series is clearly brimming with threat and violence as is intended. I am not familiar with mafia movies, but you have clearly captured the essence here with absolute integrity. Are they always black and white. It works well in your narrative.
As others I think the first ‘wise guy’ image is best, although the laughter is less sinister? maybe that is why I am drawn to it.
The flakey internet I have at present refuses to let me in to your contact sheets. A treat in store for another day.

Thank you, Sarah. I guess that image works because I feel its a moment where actually you can see the gangsters’ guards down. Its a moment portraying that behind all the hardness and danger, there is a human side to them. Thank you as always Sarah for taking the time out. Maybe I have inspired you to watch aa gangster movie? 🙂 Well, there is no rule for them always being black & white but I didn’t want the color to take the essence of the scene away – it was representative of the classic Italian mafia so I wanted to give it that feel. That’s my only reason. I thought it worked better.

A fantastic project Archna! Well researched, thought through and a whole lot of fun in the making. I’m sure your excitement and engagement fed into the performance. I love the idea and the props and also that it is something special about your family. Great stuff!